The Court of Instruction number 1 of Barcelona has asked the Treasury to report “since which year FC Barcelona has submitted invoices for Dasnil, Nilsad and Soccercam to the Tax Agency for corporate tax relief”, all three belonging to the former vice president of Technical Committee of Referees, Jose María Enríquez Negreira and his son Javier, the two accused in the procedure, along with the president Joan Laporta and other former officials of the club, such as Josep Maria Bartomeu or Sandro Rosell, for the continued crimes of bribery, corruption in business and documentary falsification.
In this way, Judge Joaquín Aguirre investigates whether there are more accounting irregularities in this procedure that began after a report from the Treasury. In this sense, the Prosecutor’s complaint presented in court indicates that the companies of Enríquez Negreira, Dasnil 95 SL and Nisdal SCP sent invoices to FC Barcelona “without them responding to any real technical advisory services or services.” For this reason, in 2019, the Tax Agency opened an inspection against Barça for the Value Added Tax (VAT) and the Corporate Tax for the years 2015, 2016, 2017 and 2018.
The Treasury asked Barça for a copy of the invoices and means of payment used, as well as duplicates of the videos and reports prepared by Enríquez Negreira to justify his work for the Barça club, who did not find “the required documentation.” In this way, the Tax Agency inspectors considered that FC Barcelona could not deduct the expenses in the Corporate Tax and VAT since the tasks allegedly entrusted to the Negreiras were not recorded and to regularize their situation they had to pay more than one million. of euros.
In 2021, the Treasury Inspection raised the regularization proposal referring to the Corporate Tax for the years 2015 to 2018, which was accepted by FC Barcelona, ??proceeding to pay 404,249.52 euros plus another 52,324.74 in late payment interest. In addition, the club also agreed to pay 473,050.11 euros plus another 84,991.54 euros in late payment interest regarding the settlement of the Value Added Tax for the years 2015 to 2017.
However, the judge wants to go further and investigates whether Barça carried out the same practice in previous years with the companies of Enríquez Negreira and his son, and that is why he requests information from the Treasury. In an order that appears in the proceedings, regarding the work that the club paid to the former referee, the court recalled that “there is not even a contract for the provision of services, that the price seems completely out of the market and that the Tax Agency has already classified it as “a mere liberality, which was accepted by FC Barcelona, ??which paid the fine imposed by the Treasury and returned the amount unduly deducted from corporate tax.”
“The reverse of the crime of falsehood committed by Enríquez father and son consists of the crime of accounting falsehood of article 310.4 of the Penal Code, given that FC Barcelona presented such false invoices to the Tax Agency to deduct corporate tax. It will be necessary to verify through subsequent investigation whether in years prior to 2016 invoices from the commercial companies DASNIL, NILSAD or SOCCERCAM were presented by FC Barcelona to the Tax Agency for deduction from corporate tax,” the magistrate recalled. Barça has always defended that the work was carried out, despite the agreement with the Treasury.
As this media learned, the court wants to look at whether or not Barça deducted the Negreiras’ invoices in years prior to the Tax Agency’s report, which could presumably lead to the commission of some new crime. For this reason, he is waiting for the requested documentation to begin investigating.
On the other hand, FC Barcelona presented a brief in response to the court’s request to detail all the presidents from 2011, the date of the start of payments to Enríquez Negreira, until 2018, when they ended. In total, 7.2 million euros were paid. Thus, Barça reports that from 2001 to 2003 Joan Gaspart was there, after a brief interval of a manager chaired by Enric Reyna, from 2004 Joan Laporta until 2010 when Sandro Rosell took over the position and in 2015 he was replaced by Josep Maria Bartomeu until 2018 The functions of the other former directors accused in the case are also specified: Óscar Grau was from 2015 to 2021 mainly as CEO of the club while Albert Soler was from 2014 to 2021 in various institutional positions in addition to director of the sports area with the mission to “actively participate in meetings with official organizations” such as LaLiga, RFEF, ACB, Euroleague, Liga Asobal, among others.
